


A Fête for Jarl and Me!

by SuperSecretAgentQrow



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Witcher Fusion, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Be Prepared for Hijinks, Holiday Shitpost, Hopefully New Chapters Every Day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-25 00:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17110919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperSecretAgentQrow/pseuds/SuperSecretAgentQrow
Summary: Vinterfête has always been a most hectic time of year in the Isles, but even High Wizard Ozpin can't predict what chaos will ensue at Hjortu Hjarta this time around!





	A Fête for Jarl and Me!

**Author's Note:**

> Had this idea mulling about for half a year now, but didn't write it out fast enough. I'll be posting it bit by bit as I get it done, hopefully before everyone gets bored of a ridiculous Viking-style fiesta lol.  
> Sorry I haven't updated a lot of my stories in a while! Sadly, my hiatus is likely gonna keep going what with second semester of this year being even tougher than the last.  
> Hope this little fun idea of mine will keep you over in the meantime, thanks for reading everything! This first year of my foray into the fandom community has been insane but I wouldn't trade it away for nothin ^_^

High in the evening sky, the shattered moon shone over the endless sea. Many a famous artist had made a pilgrimage to these Northern isles, hoping to capture some of the essential beauty of one of the great unspoiled lands in the world.

Unfortunately, the artists forgot to capture the infinite, biting, and just plain _mean_ cold that truly defined the Eyjar Leifar.

“Ah-achoo!” Neptune sneezed for the third time in the last minute. The brilliant blue hair he treasured was hastily stuffed under a borrowed goatskin cap, and his signature goggles served less as a tactical device and more of extra protection from the howling wind.

He probably didn’t look especially dangerous at the moment, his thinly-gloved hands rattling his elaborate polearm in less of a threatening gesture than a measly source of heat. The contract for two weeks in the Northic Isles had recommended decent combat experience and fluency in Nordcommn, not the cold resistance of a dire bear.

Or maybe that of the man he stood beside, who was a full foot taller than him and stoically facing into the wind with no more than a cloak and trimmed orange beard. Winchester, or so he was called, had said all of three words to him since they’d met not an hour ago: “skinny,” “come,” and “hmph.” Neptune wouldn’t be remiss if he thought this titan of a brute was a sculpted statue meant to instill fear in would-be raiders of this icy hell. Why did they ask for a mercenary sentry again?

“Ah-achoo!” he repeated. The orange giant glanced over for a moment before resuming his vigilant watch over nothing. Seriously, did he think the evergreen forest lining the path to the great hall hid such vile beasts in the darkness? Neptune grumbled to himself, watching his breath freeze over and fly away in real time.

“What did you say?” Winchester rumbled. He’d more than doubled his word count in a single sentence.

“Oh a-ah, nothing. Didn’t say anything,” Neptune corrected himself.

“Didn’t sound like nothing.” From the corner of his one eye he stared at the mercenary.

Neptune wiped a frosted mitt across his face. “What I s- _said_ was, ‘where I come from, it’s polite to bless someone w-when they sneeze.’ Happy?”

His partner tched. “Where I come from, warriors don’t weight less than a starving pup. Should I send you inside so you can stuff yourself stupid? At least then you’d look like a lot of work to eat for a grimmhünd.”

Neptune rolled his goggled eyes, trying to look nonchalant while shaking like a sapling. “If you’re gonna be like that, you Nords didn’t need to advertise for a temp guard all the way in Toutheoú. D-don’t you have sentries or something in the land of the l-legendary ice warriors?”

“We do. I’m the head of the guard,” Winchester replied gruffly. “But if you bothered to read further than the second line you’d know that it’s the first night of Vinterfête here. Nothing is sacred to the people of the Isles like a chance to party, so this time of year we hire a few numbskulls like you to sound the bells if a Grimm isn’t feeling too _festive_.”

Neptune ignored the barb. “Well, as long as it still pays this much to watch over a bunch of drunks I can’t complain. About t-too much that is - ah-choo!” He blew into a pink kerchief that was already soggy with snow and snot. “Hold on, why aren’t you down there c-celebrating too?”

The head of the guard shrugged, a tiny movement that shifted his shoulder plates more than anything. “Not a particularly cheery mood. Someone’s got to make sure the hired help doesn’t get us all killed, anyways.”

Neptune nodded, the motion helped by a particularly strong gust of wind. The conversation drifted back into silence.

He brought it back to life. “W-wait, you’re not from t-the Isles, are you?”

Once again the brute gave him a sidelong glance. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Dunno. Just seems weird that the s-sentinel of the clan isn’t down there celebrating with his k-kin. Not to mention the name Winchester doesn’t sound too N-Northic.”

Neptune thought he saw an amused snarl from beneath that bushy beard. “Ah? Alright, worldly man from the plains of wine and olives, what _does_ the name Winchester sound like to you?”

The mercenary hummed, momentarily forgetting the cold. He couldn’t be from the Orient, what with the flaming orange hair. Didn’t sound like a surname from the Schneetal Empire, either. That left only the Outlands, or...

“That’s right!” he realized with a start. “Winchester is a noble house in Lavalle! All the great crusader kings were tutored by the elder of the house, and...” he trailed off as the cloaked man looked even further into the distance. “Hold on, what’s a son of Winchester doing taking night shifts for the barbarians his people despise?”

For the first time all night the giant turned his face fully onto the newcomer, the full scar cutting across his left eye socket plainly in view. “You’re pretty smart, for an idiot who thought he could waltz into the harshest of the realms on a whim and have himself a good time. I was one too when I arrived on a trirème, armed with my great-great-grandfather’s longsword and forty of my family’s best warriors. I brushed aside the raging storms, the warnings of my elders, because what better honor was there than to bring nobility to the great savages of the North?”

Neptune sneezed again. “I take it it didn’t g-go as well as planned.”

Winchester snorted. “It went better than I could have dreamed. Every warband that charged us fell, and I strutted into the villages to take whatever I wanted in the name of liberation. If the greatest barbarians the world had ever seen were so easily crushed, how easy would it be to take Hjortu Hjarta, the Jewel of the North?”

“Considering we’re still s-standing on its great hall, probably harder than you thought.”

The sentry ignored his interruption. “We broke through their defenses at dawn. I remember kicking open the doors of the Jarl’s home, only to come face-to-face with a beautiful golden-haired woman, alone against four of the strongest crusaders in the world. When I saw her I thought she was a gift, a way for the chief to convince us to leave him to his riches and take his girl,” he drawled. “Imagine my surprise when before we could lay a hand on her, she killed my three deputies in a single blow.”

Judging from the way the brute’s hand shook the way Neptune shivered, it must have been pretty shocking.

“From there everything else was pretty much a blur. We fought for maybe five minutes, but all I can remember is the final swing of my ancestral blade at her skull.” He took a deep breath of frozen air, and Neptune watched him deflate like a dragon’s steamy exhale. “The same sword forged by legendary smith Arthos, wielded by the Second Crusader King, the sword that slew an iron giant in one slice, _shattered_ against her gauntlet.”

Neptune didn’t realize he was staring up at the man until a meaty finger came up and tapped the scar. “She didn’t even take my eye from me. The tip of my blade bounced back and tore it clean out, sitting in a pool of blood with my men. I was sure I was going to die, so I forced myself to look up at her with my one good eye. She reared back a fist, and I decided that if I was going to die I would do it facing a deadly and beautiful woman.”

“She didn’t strike you down?”

“She ended up just flicking me in the forehead. The woman called to the back of the home and out of nowhere a little girl in red popped in, kneeling beside me and wrapping a bandage around my head. I was so stunned I didn’t say a word until the Jarl himself appeared, helping to pick up the fallen enemy and sitting me in his chair. He sat and welcomed me, the man ready to burn his village to the ground, to Hjortu Hjarta, the Beacon’s Heart in their tongue.”

“They didn’t think to lock you up?” Neptune asked incredulously.

Winchester gestured to the town behind them. “Have you seen even one jail cell since you’ve arrived? Who’d be brave enough to earn a prison sentence here? Soon, they’d lodged me in a home of a man my men had killed, and left me free to roam the town I had attacked. They aren’t stupid of course, and I was under constant surveillance, even if I wasn’t aware of it at the time.”

The foreign mercenary shook with disbelief rather than the cold. “How does a village not draw and quarter the man who killed their own? Who caused so much suffering to their people?”

The wind quieted, offering themen the briefest of respites. “I was asking myself the same thing for a long time. It wasn’t until after they buried the dead, including my forty men, that I gathered the courage to ask the Jarl why he spared me.

“He led me back into his home, where I met his wife, a beautiful blind woman with silver eyes. Summer Rose was her name, and she was the clan ritesmother - a sort of diviner, historian and caregiver all rolled into one warrior-sorceress package. Summer explained that she’d known I was coming for some time, but she had seen zeal and honor in my heart.” From nowhere Winchester laughed, a violent and guttural bark into the sky. “Could you imagine? The whole town had pardoned me before I’d even arrived to slay them! That was when I realized that the people of Eyjar Leifar were the foulest, craziest lunatics to have ever graced the mortal plane.”

The sentinel huffed, pawing his massive mace absently. “Ever since then, I’ve proudly served as the Sentinel of Hjortu Hjarta. Because I’ll be damned if I let these bastards freely accept another raiding party with open arms.”

Neptune was quiet for a while, soaking in the dizzying story he was just told. “So...the Jarl just gave you the role of chief of the guard because you asked him to?”

Winchester’s lips twitched upwards. “He thought it was only fitting. I’d killed the last one myself anyways, so if anyone knew how to do it better it’d be me.” The giant paused. “Er...sorry if that was a lot, didn’t mean to give you the bard’s ballad edition of the story.”  
“No no it’s c-cool. Summer...she’s the one they carved a statue of in the middle of town, isn’t she?”

The sentinel stilled. “Yeah. She is. Died about three fortnights ago. For some of the most feared warriors the world over, the Isle people can be pretty soft when they want to be. I watched a seven-foot three hundred pound helmsman weeping at her idol, a line behind him stretching back to the port of townspeople waiting to pay their respects. Summer was the heart of the clan, and to these people heart is _everything_. No one’s hurting more than the Jarl and his girls, so I m’self am hoping the fête will ease their pain.”

Neptune thought back to his own family, who he hadn’t seen since his twentieth birthday. “Yeah. I’m hoping they can enjoy themselves in there too. You think all the guests will help with that?”

His partner growled. “So long as they don’t cause the trouble that I’m sure they’re going to, I won’t throw them out immediately. That enchantress type with her two rogues vexes me.”

“Her? She’s nothing but a political opportunist, you can’t seriously think the Jarl isn’t equipped to deal with her. I’m more concerned about the witcher in our midst.”

“The witcher. Hmm. Where witchers go trouble soon follows. Why don’t you keep an eye on her later tonight.”

“I mean, I can go down now if you want. Nothing h-happening outside other than the Leifar wind trying to freeze off my limbs, anyways.”

“You might have spoken too soon,” chuckled Winchester as loud chanting rose from the forest. Neptune looked down to see what the commotion was all about.

The first thing he saw was the head of an Ursigrimma, or so they called them here, staring up at him with its dead beady eyes big as a small child. Neptune screamed and leaped back as the sentinel cackled and stepped to the edge leaning down.

“Xiao-Long!” he hollered at the hunting party. “I have detailed orders from the Jarl himself to keep your little gang out in the cold if you arrive more than an hour late. Hope you enjoy your frozen bear meat tonight, disrespectful twats.”

At the front of the group a woman with flowing blonde hair leaned back and shouted, “Fuck off Cardin! A thank you would be much more appropriate, since I just saved you the hassle of dealing with this poor monster we found not a mile from the outposts. Don’t make me come up there and finish what I started when you got to the hjartlund!”

“Ugh, whatever crazy wench, can’t wait for you to be hungover like a muddy snürfolg come the morning,” the amused barbarian replied as he cranked open the massive double doors to the great hall. “Give my regards to your father and sister, stupid bitch,” he added.

She gave him two middle fingers and winked. “I’ll make sure to leave em where I left your eyeball, crusader turd,” she said before disappearing into the chaos that was the Hjortu Hjarta Grand Hall.

Winchester smirked at Neptune, who still hadn’t gotten over the size of the bear they'd just hauled in for the party. “Don’t worry, olive boy,” he laughed, “tonight’s only going to get more exciting.”

“G-great. Exactly what I signed up for, a-actually...”


End file.
